Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein Interview: The Making of ‘Underworld Awakening’
I WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO THE DARK
Zero Gravity sets up ‘Dark’
Mischa Barton to star in Mark Robinson indie thriller
Zero Gravity Films has set up indie thriller “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” with Oak Street Films on board to finance and Mischa Barton set to star.
Leah Pipes, Ryan Eggold and Jaz Martin are also attached with Mark Robinson set to helm from a script he penned about a girl who’s severely depressed after the deaths of both her parents. Convinced that the afterlife is mere oblivion, she retreats within herself, only to be drawn out of her depressive funk by an unexpected romance. When her new love disappears, she pursues him — even if it means walking across the threshold into death.
Christine Holder, Mark Holder and Danny Roth are producing. David C. Robinson and Mark Darling are exec producing.
Barton is repped by Domain Talent.
LIGHT YEARS
Rossum, Lowell join ‘Light Years’
Indie drama stars Peter Gallagher
“Shameless” star Emmy Rossum and “Private Practice” alum Chris Lowell are in negotiations to join Peter Gallagher in the indie drama “Light Years.”
Maggie Kiley is directing from a script she co-wrote with Matthew Mullen.
Pic is a coming-of-age story based on Kiley’s 2009 short “Some Boys Don’t Leave,” which starred Jesse Eisenberg and won Kiley awards at the Tribeca and Palm Springs film fests.
Jason Potash is producing through his and Kiley’s What a World Prods. banner. Kyle Heller and Paul Finkel will also produce.
Production is scheduled to start at the end of May in Los Angeles.
Rossum is coming off the first season of Showtime’s series “Shameless,” while Lowell next stars as Emma Stone’s love interest in DreamWorks’ adaptation of “The Help.” Thesp was last seen on the bigscreen in “Up in the Air.”
Rossum is repped by ICM and the Schiff Co., while WME and Thruline Entertainment rep Lowell.
Gallagher is repped by Gersh and John Carrabino Management. Kiley is repped by APA and Zero Gravity Management.
PAPER TRAIL
‘Paper Trail’ grows with SKE
Danish director Ole Madsen to helm thriller
Sidney Kimmel Entertainment will finance and produce the thriller “Paper Trail,” with Danish director Ole Christian Madsen set to helm.
Madsen most recently directed the comedy “Superclasico,” Denmark’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards foreign-language competition, and also directed “Flame and Citron” and “Prague.” “Paper Trail” will mark Madsen’s first U.S. production and his first English-language film.
Sidney Kimmel will produce with Mark Williams of Zero Gravity Management and SKE prexy of production Matt Berenson. SKE president Jim Tauber and Code Entertainment’s Rich Freeman exec produce.
Screenplay by Louis Rosenberg and Joe Rosenbaum centers on an ambitious assistant editor for a top publisher who finds a manuscript from prison claiming to tell the true story behind a major unsolved diamond heist, which he sees as his ticket to the top. He and his girlfriend soon find themselves pawns in a criminal mastermind’s much larger, more dangerous game.
The filmmakers are targeting a summer start and are currently out to talent.
SKE recently wrapped production of “The Place Beyond the Pines,” starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper and directed by Derek Cinefrance. It produced “One for the Money,” starring Katherine Heigl, in association with Lakeshore Entertainment, with Lionsgate releasing in Janaury.
Madsen is repped by CAA and Code Management. Rosenberg and Rosenbaum are repped by Paradigm and Zero Gravity Management.
JAVA HEAT
Margate House brews up ‘Java Heat’
Mickey Rourke, Kellan Lutz onboard to star
Margate House Films has set up the indie thriller “Java Heat” with Mickey Rourke and Kellan Lutz on board to star.
Conor Allyn will helm from a script he co-penned with his father Rob Allyn. Pic revolves around a mysterious American who teams with a Muslim cop to track down a new breed of klepto-terrorists in Southeast Asia. Lutz will play the American and Rourke will play the jewel thief who masterminds the terrorist acts.
The Allyns will produce through Margate House. Ryan Daly, Mark Williams and Lee Roy Mitchell will exec produce.
Lutz and Rourke can be seen next in “Immortals” for Relativity.
Lutz is repped by Innovative and Zero Gravity Management and Rourke is repped by ICM.
Margate House is repped by WME Global.
WILLIAM TELL
Eric Brevig Will Reteam With Brendan Fraser To Direct ‘William Tell: 3D’
EXCLUSIVE: Eric Brevig has been set to direct Brendan Fraser in William Tell: 3D, the historical family action adventure that will be shot next spring in Romania. Brevig replaces Nick Hurran. Brevig previously directed Fraser in the 3D hit Journey to the Center of the Earth, and also helmed Yogi Bear. Brevig is more than capable of shooting the splitting of an apple in 3D; he graduated to director from the position of visual effects supervisor on such films as Total Recall, Pearl Harbor, Men in Black and The Day After Tomorrow. Producer Todd Moyer said that he sparked to the idea of reteaming Fraser and Brevig. “Family action adventure is exactly what Brendan and Eric do best,” he said. “Eric’s skills and experience will make this film compete with any studio film.” Because Hurran dropped out, the film is now eyeing a mid-March 2012 start in Castel Studios in Romania and on location in Switzerland. The budget is upped to $27 million and Chad and Evan Law are tweaking their script. The film will be sold in Toronto by Gary Hamilton’s Arclight Pictures. According to the producers, Tell is a revered historical figure in Europe. Hermann Gessler, the local potentate of the Hapsburg monarch, forces Tell to shoot the apple off his son’s head because he refused to bow before Gessler’s hat. Tell drills the apple cleanly and wins both his and his son’s freedom. When Gessler asked Tell why he had two arrows in his quiver, Tell informed him that the second was for Gessler, had Tell missed with the first arrow. His defiance ignited an uprising against the Austrian government that led to the formation of Switzerland.
BREATHLESS
‘Breathless’ bags trio
Kilmer, Liotta, Gershon set to star in thriller
Val Kilmer, Ray Liotta and Gina Gershon are set to star in the thriller “Breathless.”
Jesse Baget is on board to direct, with Kelli Giddish also set to star.
Pic follows Gershon’s character, who is fed up with her husband’s criminal acts and plans with her best friend to do something about him. Kilmer would play the husband and Liotta would play a local sheriff brought into the mix.
Baget and Stefania Moscato penned the script, and Mark Holder, Christine Holder, Danny Roth and Phillip Goldfine are producing. Nicholas Chartier, Benjamin Sacks and Bryan Sexton will exec produce.
Kilmer is repped by ICM, and Liotta is repped by UTA and Untitled Entertainment.
Baget and Moscato are repped by Zero Gravity Management.
KAT COIRO
Kate Bosworth reteams with Kat Coiro
Kat Coiro and Kate Bosworth are re-teaming on an untitled Italy project following their collaboraton on “Life Happens.”
The Italy project will star Boswrith and be written and directed by Kat Coiro. Lauren Bratman, Bosworth and Coiro are producing with 1821 Pictures financing with shooting in Ischia and Naples in Italy and in Los Angeles.
Film is about a married woman named (portrayed by Bosworth) who is struggling to write a memoir about her grandmother and ends up embarking upon an affair with a wanderlusty 19-year-old on the idyllic island of Ischia. Her husband, played by Iddo Goldberg, is a tightly wound and self-restrained viola player from London.
Paris Kasidokostas Latsis and Terry Dougas are exec producing.
Coiro directed the Funny or Die short film “Idiots,” starring Zoe Saldana, Bosworth and Janeane Garofalo. Coiro’s newest film “Life Happens” premieres this weekend at the Los Angeles Film Festival and centers on three women and roommates living in modern day Los Angeles – one of whom gets pregnant after a one night stand.
Bosworth, Krysten Ritter, Rachel Bilson and Jason Biggs star. WME is handling domestic rights to “Life Happens” and Lionsgate is handling international.
“This is my third film now with Kate Bosworth,” Coiro said. “I’m beyond thrilled to be able to go off to Italy with her and have her play a complicated married woman who falls for a younger man. I think she can do anything and audiences can fall in love with her time and again.”
Bosworth was most recently seen in “Another Happy Day” and “Little Birds,” both which premiered at Sundance in Janaury. She will next be seen in the remake of “Straw Dogs” and just completed the thriller “Black Rock” with Lake Bell.
She is represented by WME and One Talent Management. Coiro is repped by WME and Zero Gravity Management. Goldberg is repped the The Collective.
THE PROTECTOR 2
Tony Jaa attached to ‘The Protector 2′
Jaa is best known in the international hit ‘Ong Baak’
Thesp Tony Jaa is attached to reprise his role in “The Protector 2.”
Prachya Pinkaew is returning as director with Sahamongkal Films producing.
Plot details are vague for the sequel but the first installment revolved around a young fighter on a journey through Australia to retrieve a stolen elephant.
Production is set to start this summer in Thailand.
Jaa is best known in the international hit Ong Baak most recently doing “Ong Baak 2″ and “Ong Baak 3″ back to back.
He is repped by Zero Gravity Management.
DYATLOV PASS
2B Pictures enters ‘Dyatlov Pass’
Pic to be directed by Simon Fellows
LONDON — 2B Pictures, the production arm of Blighty’s Future Film Group, is adapting Alan K. Baker’s tome “Dyatlov Pass,” based on the mysterious ski incident, to the big screen.
Pic, which will be directed by “Malice in Wonderland” helmer Simon Fellows, will chronicle the true-life events that took place in February 1959 in Russia’s Ural Mountains, when nine ski hikers mysteriously died.
Andy Briggs (“Ghost Town”) will adapt the script, which chronicles Baker’s interpretation of the event. The hiker’s deaths have inspired much speculation including being linked to paranormal activity or a military cover-up.
The group tore open their tent from the inside and left barefoot in a heavy snowstorm. Though there was no sign of struggle, two victims had fractured skulls, one was missing her tongue and clothing belonging to them contained high levels of radiation.
Stephen Margolis’ Future Film Group will finance the pic, which is skedded to begin lensing in summer 2012 in Eastern Europe.
The deal was brokered by Briggs and Fellows through Barker’s agent, Meg Davis of MBA Literary Agency.
Fellows is repped by Zero Gravity Management, with which Future Film Group collaborates.
Future Film recently made its first foray in to TV — the outfit recently financed and produced cooking program “Annabel’s Kitchen” for ITV.